"Yes, with Gerard, my dear brother. When I was told that these men were going to prison and would surely be put to death--oh, it was terrible to think of,--my brother, little Gerard, as we used to call him, my mother and I. _Mon Dieu_, I would give my life to save him, and so I rode in search of the Landgrave, to beg that he would save Gerard. Some of the officers told me where to find him,--in the tower where the conspirators had been caught. I went there, and begged him on my knees for Gerard's life. He sent away the Count von Rothenstein and the others who were there, and listened to me. At last he said there was a way in which I might save Gerard, though my brother was one of the officers of the band and deserved death even more than the others did. I said I would give my life to save Gerard's,--for I knew that you, my love, would not blame me for that. But the Landgrave said it was not my life he wished, it was--" "I understand!" "I would not consent to that, even to save my brother. When the Landgrave became more urgent, and began to speak of my duty as a sister, I said that what he asked was not mine to give, that I was pledged to another. And then he told me you were dead, that you had been shot while trying to escape when the conspirators were captured. For a time I could not speak. He called back the minister of police and the others, and asked them to assure me that you had been killed. When I could no longer doubt, something seemed to have died within me. I felt that I was no longer a living woman, that my life had gone out at the news that you were dead." "My poor beloved!" "Then the Landgrave sent away the others, and spoke again of Gerard, saying that one of whose treason there was so much proof would certainly be condemned, and that only an arbitrary order of the sovereign could cause him to be released. The thought came to me that it was no longer a living woman that the Landgrave demanded for my brother's life, that I was no more Catherine de St. Valier, and that if I should consent to save Gerard it would be giving the Landgrave not myself but a soulless corpse. Oh, do you not understand?" "Yes, yes, _I_ understand. _I_ can imagine all you felt!" "It was agreed that a messenger of the Landgrave should go with Antoine to Spangenberg, with everything necessary for Gerard's release and his flight to France. The Landgrave was not to present himself before me until he could bring proofs, with Antoine as an eye-witness, of Gerard's departure from Spangenberg. I was waiting for him when you came in by the window. So distracted I was, that, for the moment, I supposed the Landgrave had taken that way of entrance for the sake of greater secrecy."